Hot Babe: Sarah Palin as a Feminist?

No matter how much lipstick Sarah Palin wears or what animal she compares herself to, she is neither a feminist nor a step forward for women. No, no dear readers, she is simply the most pronounced symptom of HRBS (Hot Republican Babe Syndrome), a phenomena in which Republican women are all too eager to fill the mold of political sex objects. Take a moment and Google "hot republican" or "republican babe". Now search for "democratic babe". Pretty different results, no?

Until now, such Republican hotties have had the decency to refrain from touting themselves as feminists. Take HRB Ann Coulter. She works her mini-skirts, vinyl-mini dresses (which I am pretty sure are only purchasable in sex shops) and blond hair for all of the attention it will get her views. Even though I abhor her HRB views almost more than I do Palin's, I abhor them with some sort of contentment for the following reasons: she knows her stuff, having enough experience to lend credibility to her zany views; she is very aware of how she exploits her looks for status; she sure as hell isn't trying to pass herself off as the hammer with which American women can at long last break the glass ceiling. To have the audacity to hold up Sarah Palin as Thor's hammer for women is tantamount to pointing to a black minstrel show in the 1870s and saying, "My, what strides African-Americans had made. Look, they're in the spotlight!"


Maybe you are thinking the media and the lefties who control it that are to blame for objectifying a courageous (and hot!) woman like Sarah Palin. Republicans must see her as a bastion of diplomacy and policy knowledge, a woman of true foresight! Yes, indeed, when attendees to the Republican convention were asked what they think qualifies Palin for Vice President response actaully come along the lines of, "Well, she's beautiful." A bastion of diplomacy and policy knowledge, a woman of true foresight . . . who looks so fine, damn girl, mmmm. It's pretty clear that the objectification of Palin is something both parties have been able to work on together, (Biden, Biden, you must love the taste of your foot). What makes the whole situation so rank is that Palin seems to be embracing it.

Surely, any respectable politician would disown slogans like, "Coldest State, Hottest Gov," or "Hoosiers for The Hot Chick," as the degrading idiocy they are. Alas, let us bask in the glory of Palin beaming on the cover of Alaska next to the title "America's Hottest Govenor: Wildly Popular, More than Just a Pretty Face". She's not just pretty, she's popular too! Seriously? Forget the global politics, that PTA that got under her thumb back in the day deserved more.
Being attractive is all well and good* but it should not be what gets anyone, women or men, into political office. Barak Obama had the good sense to downplay Obama Girl because he actually wants to be taken seriously, perhaps because unlike other citizens whose hats are currently in the ring, he has an idea of what is required of a President. I am, of course, forced to assume Palin can't possibly know what a President does since she doesn't know, "Exaclty what it is a Vice President does." No wonder Palin is into being hot; from all the mini-scandals she brewed up in her relatively short political career in Alaska (seriously, you're from Alaska and you don't like polar bears! I suppose the love of the state's other natural assest, oil, makes up for that though!), and her sheer ignorance, she needs her audience to focus on her HRB surface.

Deception and slight of hand in politics are nothing new or exclusive to either sex. What is new, is a woman feeling no shame in being picked as a showpiece, playing the role to a tee, and all while calling herself a feminist. Just because a woman is nominated for Vice President, it does not make her a feminist. It is astounding that if a woman is in a place of political prominence, it is now fair game to call her a feminist. Feminism is, in my view at least, all about equal rights and opportunities between the sexes. Palin embodies the opposite: fitting a male idea of a woman and seeming empowered. Thanks for setting American women back forty years sixty, Ms. Palin! The scariest part of it is though, that Palin's time in the lime light has paved the way for thousands of fundamentalist Christian girls to go into politics, to think that they too are feminists, when the only reason they beleive it is okay for them to be out of their perfect ideal role of homemaker is that the world isn't ideal; they can try to make it that way though. Ladies put your thinking caps on; something tells me we're going to need a new word for feminist fast if (heart palpatations) Palin in all her conservative hotness ends up in the White House.